Jessica Hart - Newlyweds of Convenience

Once the kitchen and bathroom were ready for painting, Mallory had turned her attention to the kitchen garden. She’d been there with Charlie one day when she had recognised a blackcurrant bush, half strangled by the tangle of undergrowth. She had found some straggly rosemary too, and had begun to wonder what other plants had survived the years of neglect.

‘This would have been a thriving garden once,’ Torr had said. ‘Kincaillie was a busy place in its heyday in the nineteenth century. Judging from the stories my grandfather used to tell, there were lots of servants, and the family used to have house parties and shooting parties. All those people had to be fed, so presumably a lot of the fresh fruit and vegetables were grown here.’

It was hard to imagine Kincaillie alive with people and laughter, Mallory had thought, surveying the tangled garden, but she’d poked around in the outbuildings and found a rusty old fork. Once she had started to clear, she’d found all sorts of fruit bushes and old raspberry canes. Apples and pears were pleached along the south facing wall, and there were great clumps of rhubarb gone to seed.

Having never had more than a pretty little courtyard garden in Ellsborough, Mallory hadn’t thought of growing vegetables before, but now she was seized with a most unlikely enthusiasm for it, and had added gardening tools and an instruction book to her list.

Between cleaning and exploring, and walking Charlie and making plans, it was amazing how quickly the fortnight had gone. Astounding, too, how quickly she was getting used to Kincaillie. There was surprising satisfaction to be had in steadily clearing and cleaning their living quarters, and Mallory was positively looking forward to painting the rooms now that she could see their potential.

She was even beginning to contemplate the much bigger task of starting work on the rest of the castle with interest rather than horror. She was finding her way around, and it now seemed quite ordinary to pick her way across weed-infested flagstones, up and down worn stone stairwells and past rusting suits of armour.

Every day she and Charlie explored a little bit further outside, although they stuck to the shore as much as possible. Mallory told herself it was because she didn’t want to get lost, and because Charlie was so happy by the sea, but the truth was that the looming mountains still frightened her. They were so big and so bare, and they made her feel very small. She was always glad to get back to the familiar kitchen.

So, while it would be too much to say that she was feeling at home, she was definitely feeling more positive. Perhaps she wouldn’t have chosen to spend a year at Kincaillie under normal circumstances, but the prospect was certainly less bleak than it had been when she’d arrived.

Things were much easier with Torr, too. Just as she had hoped, the hard physical work gave her less time to think about Steve, and sometimes it was possible to think that her shattered heart might even be slowly healing. Torr had showed her how to use the range, and they took it in turns to cook in the evening, with Charlie getting under their feet and music in the background. Afterwards they sat by the fire like a staid married couple, and talked easily about everything except the state of their marriage or life before they came to Kincaillie.

It all felt very normal.

The only thing Mallory couldn’t get used to was sleeping with Torr. Tired as she was at the end of every day, she was always reluctant to leave the fire for the bedroom. It was more than the cold, though. In spite of their agreement, the more times they shared the bed, the more awkward it felt-or that was how it seemed to Mallory, anyway. Somehow it had been easier when they were hostile to each other.

Torr always offered to take Charlie out for a last run while she got ready for bed, so she was huddled up under the duvet and piles of blankets before he came in. And then the conversation which had been easy by the fire in the kitchen suddenly dried up, and there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the little room.

Mallory tried to get over it by being as matter-of-fact as Torr himself, but she was excruciatingly aware of him every time they settled themselves close together, and it made her so tense that she found it difficult to get to sleep.

At least in Inverness they were likely to get a mattress without a great dip in the middle, she told herself. She was looking forward to the trip with the same excitement with which she had once planned a visit to Paris. It was hard to believe that she’d only been at Kincaillie two weeks. She might be making the best of things here, but she still craved some city air, some noise and some crowds, and some paving stones beneath her feet.

When Torr had studied the list she had drawn up, his brows had crawled up to his hairline as he’d turned the page. ‘There’s no way we’ll get all this in a day-even if we didn’t have the architect to see. We’ll need to do a big supermarket shop too. We’d better spend the night,’ he’d decided.

‘What about Charlie?’ Mallory had asked.

‘We’ll take him with us. I’m sure we can find a hotel that accepts dogs.’

Better and better.

Mallory’s spirits were high as they set off early that morning. It was the first time she had left Kincaillie since they had arrived in the middle of that awful storm, and excitement tingled along her veins as they hit the tarmac road at the end of the Kincaillie track at last.

She looked about her with interest. The darkness had been so complete when they’d arrived that she had seen none of this before. For a while it was just more hills, but after fifteen miles or so they came to a sizeable village, with a post office-cum-general store and a square whitewashed hotel.

‘Civilisation at last!’

Amusement bracketed Torr’s mouth. ‘This is Carraig,’ he said. ‘You may mock, but there’s more here than you think. This will be the hub of your social life for the next year!’

Mallory eyed the single empty street. It was hard to imagine she would find any kindred spirits here. ‘I think I may be popping up to Inverness for a fix of city life instead,’ she said, and Torr glanced at her.

‘You might change your mind when you find out how long it takes us to get there.’

AFTER two weeks of isolation, Inverness seemed incredibly busy. Mallory blinked at the traffic. Here were the people, the cars, the shops and all the signs of a thriving city that she had missed so much at Kincaillie, but instead of feeling at home she felt like a stranger arriving in a different country.

Perhaps it was just because she was English?

They checked in at the hotel first. Torr had booked separate rooms without asking her, and Mallory told herself that she was relieved.

‘Didn’t they think it was a bit odd?’ she whispered as they waited for their key. ‘A married couple asking for separate rooms?’

Torr only shrugged. ‘Who cares what they think?’ he said, sounding disconcertingly like the ruthless businessman he had been before Kincaillie. ‘We’re paying good money for two rooms. That’s all that matters.’

‘I’m sure they must be wondering about us,’ said Mallory uncomfortably.

‘Tell them I refuse to sleep in the same room as the dog or something, if it makes you feel better.’

‘I could tell them that you snore,’ she retorted, rather nettled by his dismissive attitude.

‘Tell them what you like.’ Torr bent to pick up both overnight bags as Mallory had Charlie on the lead. ‘Tell them the truth if you want.’

‘The truth?’

‘That you don’t like sleeping with your husband.’

A tinge of colour crept into her cheeks. ‘I’m not the one who booked separate rooms,’ she pointed out. ‘Perhaps they’ll think you don’t like sleeping with me!’

Torr looked at her. Her hair was dark and soft and shining, and her deep brown eyes were bright, animating the lovely face that had for so long been blank with misery. In her sea-green jacket and turquoise scarf, she was a slim, vibrant figure in the old-fashioned lobby.

‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ he said softly, and as Mallory’s gaze met his navy blue ones the air seemed to thicken around them, muffling the sounds of breakfast being served in the restaurant, blurring the receptionist and the tourists checking out, until there was just the two of them, standing there, looking at each other.

Mallory’s throat was dry, her heart thudding. She wanted to tear her eyes away and step back, but she was trapped by that deep, dark blue gaze. All she could do was stare back at him and wonder with some strange, detached part of her mind why she had never noticed how thick and dark his lashes were before. Had Torr always had that dark rim around the iris, those creases at the edge of his eyes?

The blue gaze seemed to be reaching deep inside her, as if he could see behind her own eyes to where she was torn and confused about how she felt, to the secret part of her that wondered, wondered, wondered every night what would happen if she turned and touched him.

The mere possibility that he might be able to guess was enough to make Mallory panic, and gave her the strength to jerk her eyes away. She swallowed. ‘I’d better take Charlie for a quick walk,’ she said unsteadily.

‘OK.’ Torr checked his watch. ‘Let’s have breakfast in half an hour. I’ll meet you down here then.’

He sounded so normal that Mallory wanted to hit him, and had to turn on her heel and stalk out with Charlie instead. She was outraged that he could have been so unmoved by that meeting of their eyes when she was so shaken, and furious at how wobbly her voice had been. Even her knees felt weak!